


A Change in the World

by rispacooper



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol, Asexual Character, Asexuality Spectrum, Baking, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Demisexuality, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, Growing Up, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Pansexual Character, Pining, Queer Character, Queer Themes, So Married, Thanksgiving Dinner, Winter Screw, being outed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 17:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: “Gonna make somebody a sweet househusband someday, William.”Derek immediately wanted to brain himself on a cabinet but widened his eyes innocently when Dex twisted around to squint at him.“I can’t tell if you’re being sexist or not,” Dex remarked, giving Derek another suspicious look for good measure before turning back to his dishes. He didn’t comment on the rest of Derek’s obvious—obvious to Derek, anyway—angling for info on his love life. He didn’t comment on his love life, one way or the other. He never did, even in his freshman year. That meant something to certain people.





	1. Act One (Act Two)

**Author's Note:**

> These characters belong to Ngozi. 
> 
> Please check the tags. This story is not super angst-filled, but it does feature someone being outed, as well as some discussions about ace stuff and queer stuff, and there is some drinking and some sex (though nothing I would call drunken sex). Also it's not in the tags because it's not direct, but referenced ace/homophobia. 
> 
> Also, I know next to nothing about Wicks, or the names of the Waffles.

Act One

(Act Two)

Derek couldn’t say he’d thought about it. Winter Screw had lost some of its luster. It was an ideal event for freshmen desperate to meet someone or hook up now that they were in college. But he was a junior and had no problem with either of those things, if he wanted them.

 _When_ , he corrected himself. _When_ he wanted them. Which he would, eventually. 

If he was currently unable to summon much interest in sex or romance, he had a very good reason, and he was allowed to wallow. 

Not that he looked like he was wallowing. That was the first rule of getting hurt—never let the other person see what they’d done. Especially if the only reason Derek was hurt was his own pathetic longing and the other person hadn’t done anything except leave him with an awkward and slightly painful morning after. 

More than slightly. But again, that was Derek’s issue. And as far as the rest of the world knew, he was just fine. 

He flipped a page in his book and toyed with the pencil behind his ear, for all intents and purposes uninterested in the conversation flowing around him. The noise in the Haus kitchen was pretty hard to ignore, but he thought he managed. 

It was always this loud when more than three teammates were in here at one time. Derek honestly wasn’t sure if someone had called for a meeting or what, but almost everyone was there, or had stopped in before dashing off to another class. It could have been for the dozens of cookies on plates all over the counter. Bitty might have texted everyone and Derek just hadn’t checked his phone recently. 

He’d meant to grab a handful of thumbprint cookies when he’d walked in, but his appetite had unexpectedly deserted him. Then he hadn’t wanted to walk right back out either, that would have been too obvious. So here he was, pretending to read, listening to Wicks keep trying to bring up the subject of Winter Screw while everyone munched an inexhaustible supply of cookies.

Bitty must really be avoiding something. Probably a final. This looked like classic avoidance baking. 

“So.” Wicks tried again. He didn’t have Holster’s natural boom to silence chatting Taddies and Waffles. “Screw.”

Whiskey and Tango were at the end of the table, Tango using the lawn chair they’d brought in for extra seating during Hausgiving. Bitty and Wicks were at the other end of the table. Ollie was in class along with some of the others who had passed through earlier. Chowder was alone at Derek’s right, although Farms had been on his lap earlier. Dex was in the seat directly across from Derek. The advantage to being upperclassmen—and Frogs—was guaranteed seating in a crowded Haus. 

“Holy fuck,” Wicks swore, and Derek wondered if Tango had been going for a while, asking questions that Derek had mostly learned to tune out. “Listen. Bitty’s got the C but Rans and Holster entrusted this job to the two senior D-men—no offense meant to anyone else.” Bitty and Dex raised their heads. Derek determinedly did not. He took his pencil from behind his ear and made a note in his book. “Rans thinks it would be great if the upperclassmen who aren’t in relationships” –that was all of them but Chris and Bits, but Wicks nicely didn’t point that out— “would attend to ensure the Waffles and any uncertain Taddies weren’t alone out there. Those were Ransom’s words,” Wicks added, apparently distancing himself from concern for the Tadpoles or the freshmen. 

Derek didn’t think the words _straight guys_ but he did glance up. Dex’s eyes caught his. Derek returned to his book. 

Wicks got distracted, tapping out something on his phone. He’d been chatting with a girl both before and during Hausgiving. But Derek didn’t ask him how it was going. 

Hausgiving was a jagged memory for Derek. He kept throwing himself on it as if that was going to dull the sensation and not just keep making him bleed. In time, the memory might become less raw, maybe even something bittersweet. At the moment, it was a jumble of realizing he’d slept through both his and Dex’s alarms out of habit, running late because no one had been there to kick him out of bed, descending into the kitchen in an empty Haus just after the crack of dawn to find a travel mug of coffee and a foil-wrapped pie on the counter for him to take home with him, and then sitting on the train, eyes closed, mind spinning with worried, sick thoughts of how stupid he was. 

So. Yeah. Not a good day. 

Not a good weekend either, although he’d been happy to see his family and gotten so many hugs his ribs should have been crushed. He got real food. Real coffee. He handed over the pie with a flaming hot face and hated the sound of his sister cooing over the leaves that had been cut out to decorate the lattice work on an otherwise ordinary cherry pie. Because his phone? All but silent. That day, and most of the next. And then that was a simple: _Having a nice weekend?_

What did that even mean?

Derek had sent back a picture of him out with a friend and gotten no response for hours, even though the message had clearly been read. 

_Looks like fun._

With a period and everything. The fuck was that, Poindexter? 

Derek had spent years reading into things. He wasn’t going to keep doing it. Sure, he hadn’t been wrong about Will. But being right had ultimately been meaningless from the second he’d woken up to see Will’s bag gone from their room. 

Dex got up from his seat to fill his water bottle at the sink. One of the Waffles moved as if he was going to nab the open chair. Derek hooked an ankle around the chair leg and yanked it back to the table and out of his reach before shooting the guy a glare. 

He froze when Dex reappeared in his line of sight, chest stretching a burgundy SMH sweatshirt with a stain on it from a beer Derek had spilled on him at a kegster. Derek brought his eyes up. Dex gave him a grateful smile that was not charming or deadly when combined with his backwards hat and sticky-outty ears and stray orange strands across his forehead. 

Derek dropped his attention back to his book. 

“Thanks, Nurse,” Dex said anyway, apparently not up on the so-called classics enough to know when he was being given The Cut Direct. 

Derek made a note in the margin of the book he was not reading. Steinbeck. More white dude canon, and stolen from another writer at that. At least it wasn’t the Beat poets, who were overrated as well as predators, and should be excluded from anyone’s list of greatest anything. But once Derek finished this, he could start on that new translation the Odyssey, which his sister had recommended. His schedule was packed, but he could use the distraction. He was tired of late night thoughts and early morning daydreams and would prefer exhaustion. 

Dex seemed to be frowning down at a sociology text. He wasn’t taking a sociology class, but one of his humanities requirements must have required this particular reading. He either hated it or was confused, judging from the furrow in his forehead. 

Or wasn’t reading it at all. 

“Right, Dex?” Wicks asked, and Dex blinked several times before trying—failing—to school his face into something less unhappy. He glanced at Derek then physically startled when he found Derek watching him. 

He quickly looked at Bitty, then Wicks. “What?” 

Bitty gestured to the plate of jam-filled thumbprint cookies that had appeared between them on the table. “I said you helped with the jam too, not just the cookie part. I’ll have you all set up to do the teams PB&Js next year. Just you wait.” Bitty took a smug swallow from his beer and then had another delicate bite from his microwaved bean burrito. 

The alarm on Dex’s face was hilarious. Derek cackled a little despite himself. 

“Shut up, Nursey,” Dex growled at him, face a color that said he was flustered and maybe also pleased. 

Derek started to respond, then remembered he was mad. 

No, not mad. He didn’t want to care enough to be mad. He was disappointed. That was all. 

Which—shit—made him sound like his mom. The actual fuck? Derek was all over the place, absolutely ruined because of one boy. 

A close-if-not-best friend sort of boy, granted. A probably closeted or whatever, still calling himself straight, boy. Which was his right but—Derek gritted his teeth. Derek should at least get to hear that. He wasn’t going to pressure Will, Will should know that, even if that had been… kind of better than anything Derek had imagined. 

Derek could deal. Stay friends. Roommates. _Good_. Good enough to handle whatever the next year would bring. Dex dating, maybe coming out. Whatever it might be, it was fine. It was aaaall fine. Someday, someone else out there would probably make Derek’s chest fill up with light and warmth again and he could talk about it with Dex and they would be chill. 

But first he needed to hear some words and he probably never would. 

Or maybe the words only mattered because it was less painful to imagine Will panicking over his sexuality and leaving than it was to think Will had woken up next to him and regretted Derek. 

Derek was stubborn and uptight about weird shit, as someone at Andover had once told him, slicing Derek up hard and not even caring. An asshole and probable TERF in one of his English classes said Derek talked a progressive game, but in reality he just wanted an academic job with a spouse and a house in the burbs. Which wasn’t even true since Derek hated the suburbs. And anyway, progressive meant acceptance even for dreams like that, not that Derek had those. 

Will might have seen that about Derek, or something worse, and wanted to get the hell out of there. The thing about the groupies, which Will insisted on calling them until now Derek did too, was that whether or not Derek slept with them—which he didn’t—they were easy to deal with. They only wanted the surface. Maybe everyone did, and didn’t think sharing a bond over anxiety and silent, internal panic was a plus the way Derek had. Maybe in the light of day, Will wanted to be friends, but the full Derek was too much to bear, even for those shoulders. Maybe Derek had revealed so much that even the dark couldn’t hide it. 

“You like strawberry, right?” A voice intruded on his spiral. “Hey. These are strawberry. Have some.” 

Derek belatedly noticed a plate of thumbprint cookies had been nudged in front of him. He still had no appetite, although he would have to eat at some point to appease Bitty. 

He could be friends. He could answer stiff smiles with a nod, and check Poindexter into the sink in the mornings, and inform him his family had eaten every last bite of that ridiculously pretty pie. But he couldn’t be an experiment—if that’s what that was. And not some one night stand, not with someone who was supposed to be his friend and liney. He and Dex weren’t whatever the hell Rans and Holster were either. They were Derek and Will—or had been, Derek guessed. That was all over now because Derek had been stupid and asked to kiss him and Will was weak. 

Or scared. 

Or just couldn’t handle Derek. 

Then fine. Whatever. It was chill. 

The plate was shoved toward Derek more insistently. “Hey,” some of the soothing quality had left Dex’s voice. “Eat some damn cookies before they’re all gone.”

Derek snapped his gaze across to Dex’s. “Don’t tell me what to do.” 

Both of Dex’s eyebrows flew up in surprise, then drew together. “Fine. Don’t eat the fucking cookies then.”

“I’ll do what I want, Poindexter,” Derek answered, sharper than he meant to, in a tone he hadn’t used since their freshman year. He picked up a cookie and shoved it in his mouth. 

He immediately felt childish. The cookie was filled with a dollop of strawberry, which _was_ his favorite. Fuck. 

Dex narrowed his eyes like he knew that Derek enjoyed the cookie no matter what Derek tried to make his face do. 

“What is happening?” Chowder wondered, also in a tone Derek hadn’t heard since their first year. 

“The fuck is this?” Wicks was more direct. “I’m not going through your Frog year again.” 

“Seconded,” Whiskey chimed in. He wasn’t even at Samwell for their Frog year. 

Derek and Will—and Chris—all turned toward him at the same time. Then Will huffed and stared back down at his text.

Derek stared back down at his. He made another note in the margin. 

“Back to business.” Wicks focused on the current group again. “Anyway. Screw. Who needs a date?” Derek did not miss the look Tango shot Whiskey before he said he did. Of course, then he followed it up with a bunch of questions about Ransom and how Ransom would still know these things and what exactly he put in his spreadsheets anyway. 

The tiny smirk forming on Dex’s lips disappeared the second Wicks cut Tango off and said, “Nurse, I doubt you need the help, but you going?”

Derek didn’t care about Screw, but Bitty wasn’t going to go without Jack, and Wicks and the absent Ransom were probably right about the Waffles—and Dex’s shoulders were tense and tight. Derek made himself take another cookie. “Yeah sure.”

“You want Ransom’s database to match you with someone?” 

Derek had a dainty nibble of delicious strawberry jam and buttery cookie. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Cool.” Wicks made a note. “Oh yeah. Ransom says I have to ask if you, like, prefer a gender, or whatever.”

“ _Or whatever_?” Chowder echoed. “Is that a fine? I feel like that’s a fine. Shitty’s amended by-laws.” He grabbed a cookie too. “Also I do not need a date.” 

Everyone knew that. Derek turned to him anyway. “Are you even going to go?” 

C hummed around his cookie. “Maybe. A date night is always nice.”

Screw was mostly horny, nervous, drunk-ass freshmen, but okay. 

“Yo, Nurse.” Wicks was like a tired, slightly obscene teacher trying to keep the class focused. He read out loud from his phone. “‘This is not intended to put anyone on the spot but you are not supposed to assume.’” He looked back up. “So I have to ask. You can lie if you want. I don’t care.”

“Yeah sure, I’ll go,” Derek repeated. “And naaaah,” he drew out the word deliberately, “no preference.” It was the truth anyway. The one person he currently wanted he didn’t have and that feeling was not likely to go away soon.

“How come nobody set us up when we were freshmen?” Tony had more questions. 

“They did, you just didn’t notice.” Whiskey looked like he was texting someone but answered patiently. “Remember the nice girl you danced with last Screw?”

“Oh yeah. Wait, she was my date?” 

Bitty snorted into his beer, then muttered something about a tickle in his throat. Liar. 

“No, thank you!” Dex blurted out, although no one had asked him anything yet. Everyone looked up. “I mean—” he dog-eared the corner of the page he was on, then smoothed it out “—I’ve gone the last two years and I’m fine without it. Thanks but no thanks.”

For whatever reason, that stung. Maybe it was hearing Will reject something else. 

“Aw, come on.” Derek was a touch too loud but otherwise breezy. “You’re missing out on a chance for romance. You could be telling the story at your wedding of how Ransom, who wasn’t even here, found you your soulmate.”

Will clenched his jaw. “Screw is not about romance.”

“And not everyone wants romance,” Whiskey remarked, smooth as butter.

And he was fucking right, was the thing. Derek kind of wanted to tell him to shut up, but Whiskey was right. Derek looked at the muscle jumping in Will’s jaw, the color across his face. It was true, but it wasn’t cool to out Will if he was aro. That was Will’s business. 

Will glared at the world. He looked sort of indignant, like he had something to say and people kept speaking for him before he could say it.

It sent a tiny thrill through Derek, like he hadn’t felt since the night of Hausgiving. Dex could take too long to say important stuff sometimes, because he wanted to say it calmly and reasonably and the anxiety wouldn’t let him. Derek had forgotten that, in the past few days. Maybe Will had sensed Derek’s every desire pouring out into those kisses and he didn’t want Derek’s romantic feelings and he didn’t know how to say it. Derek should have told him that simply climbing those stairs with him had already made Derek off the charts levels of happy. 

Still. Derek didn’t say it now. Because Will had left Derek there. Without a word. For over a whole day. And yes Will had been driving for most of that day and visiting with his family for the rest but it didn’t matter. He could have typed _anything_ , not left Derek with his own anxious thoughts and silence. 

Derek was, for the moment, ignoring the travel mug of coffee and the foil-wrapped pie on the counter. He’d already let his heart beat so hard for William Poindexter that Will had finally noticed after years of Derek trying to be his huckleberry. He wasn’t about to do it again so soon. Not for anything less than words. Dex was his friend, and Derek understood him on a lot of things, but that night…. 

That night. 

Derek casually flipped a page since he wasn’t reading anyway. “Romance isn’t necessary. You go to Screw to have fun. You know what fun is, right, Will?” Derek’s Frog voice was close to the surface again, making him sound immature and hurt, like he was looking for lines to cross. 

He frowned. He’d meant to rescue Will, if Will was aro, not push him into going when he didn’t want to. He sighed. “Wait—” 

“I just don’t see any point in going,” Will insisted at the same time. 

“Uh, Screw is about getting laid,” Wicks corrected everyone. 

“Not everyone wants to get laid,” Whiskey chimed in again right as Derek said those exact words too. 

Bitty put down his beer, glanced from Derek to Dex, then nodded cautiously.

Dex just stared at Derek, lips slightly parted. 

“Why not?” Wicks had apparently failed at reading his notes from Ransom. “Are you bad at it?”

There was no color in Dex’s face now. Everything about it was wrong.

“That is _definitely_ a fine.” Chowder’s interruption stopped all other noises and conversation until Wicks sighed and pulled out a few dollars. 

Bitty cleared his throat. “Then the night of Screw, Dex can stay here with me. We’ll work on something for the holidays.”

“Or study for finals?” Will suggested, turning to exchange a look with Bitty. 

“Both?” Bitty suggested brightly, still lying. “We can do both.”

“Christ,” Will muttered a second later. “At least Ford isn’t here.”

“You could take Ford!” It just… it just came out of Derek’s mouth. He had no idea why, except that Dex liked Ford and Ford liked Dex and it wasn’t like-like it was just _like_. “It’ll be fun. We’ll all go. No soulmates required.” Someone needed to make him stop talking. 

“Ford already has a date,” Dex informed Derek, suspicion all over his face. “And I don’t want to hang out with a stranger all night. That a crime?” He gave Derek a glare. “You go. Bring a groupie. Do whatever.” 

Derek put down his book. “Maybe I will.”

“Like I could stop you.” Dex crossed his arms. 

“Won’t know until you try.” Derek smiled coolly at him and ate another cookie with his favorite of Bitty’s jams in it. 

Dex’s face and ears were almost the same color. “You don’t want me to try.”

Derek’s voice reached a volume that was impossible to play off as calm. “You sure about that?” 

“It appears we have traveled back in time and stumbled into yet another Nursey/Dex situation.” Wicks raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Look, I have to do this or Holster will never let me hear the end of it.”

“I don’t get it.” Tango’s innocent voice was clear as a bell. “Dex, if you’re gray ace then why does Nursey want to make you to go to Screw so bad? Or uh, demi, right? That’s the word you used when I asked, right before you said, ‘I know you’re curious about this stuff, Tony, but maybe don’t ask me because talking about it is still weird for me.’ _Oh_.” Tango stopped and shut his mouth and the room went dead quiet. “Oh sorry! Oh I’m so sorry! I should not have done that!”

“It’s fine,” Will said, in this voice was that _not_ fine. It was tight and tense and embarrassed. “It’s fine. I was gonna—I know you didn’t mean to.”

It was not fine. Will was freaking out and Derek was frozen. 

“Oh,” Chowder said. Then, “Ah,” like this was an insignificant fact that was not rocking his world. “So you aren’t interested in Screw, Dex? That’s okay. We’ll all leave you alone now. Won’t we?” He spoke like the terrifying goalie he was. “Also, Tony—that is a big fine. Huge. I don’t even know the amount yet. We’ll have to consult Shitty or hold a meeting.”

Will took a deep breath and leaned ever so slightly into the hand Bitty put on his shoulder. He needed to look up. Maybe not at Derek. But he needed to look up so Derek would know he was okay. 

Derek hadn’t known this about Will, but he still felt like Wicks for few moments, uninformed and clumsy about it. All those years teasing Will for information about his sex life—terrible chirps that hadn’t fooled _anyone_ except possibly Dex—and Will must have hated each one. No wonder he hadn’t trusted Derek. Fuck.

“Tango, stop talking,” Wicks grunted. Apparently Tango was still talking. Derek hadn’t heard any of it. “We get it. Shits gave us all the sex positivity talk too. Dex has to feel an emotional connection to want to bone. It’s okay.”

Derek dropped his pencil. 

Will’s gaze darted to him, eyes like they hadn’t been since the Dib Flip. 

He looked terrified.


	2. Act Two (Act One)

Act Two

(Act One)

Derek couldn’t say it didn’t cross his mind in the bright, orange warmth of slow mornings or late at night once the lights were out. That he didn’t occasionally get so caught on a thought of what it would be like to spend more time in soft, safe silence with his favorite spiky ginger that he wound up staring wistfully into the distance until he tripped over his own feet or someone snapped him out of it. 

“Hey, Nurse, hand me those last cups over there?” Dex’s low question broke the quiet of the kitchen, the splash of water in the sink, the gentle murmur of the broom across the floor. Dex paused. “ _Carefully_ ,” he added, stressing the word. 

“Rude.” Derek picked up the cups though, mismatched mugs that had been served as water and wine glasses for the Hausgiving meal. 

Dex looked up as Derek brought them over, but just to roll his eyes before he took them. “Thanks.” He smelled like dish soap and his hands were hot from the sudsy water. A brief touch made Derek’s stomach quiver, but he stepped away before he could make it weird, and picked up the broom again. 

He wasn’t permitted to actually wash the dishes, even though at least half of them were from thrift stores. He wasn’t really allowed to cook either—at least with anything involving knives or potential food poisoning—also rude—so he was on floor-cleaning duty. He didn’t really mind. 

He took his time at the corners and moved the chairs a few times, just to make sure he got everything. He didn’t move Bitty’s seat, but that’s because Bitty was still in it, tired and slightly tipsy and fit to bursting with the anticipation of seeing Jack. 

Derek’s stomach did another thing, sending envious little pangs all through his insides. Bitty was on his phone. He’d just finished packing up leftovers, which he shouldn’t have had to do any more than Dex should be doing dishes, since they had done most of the food prep and cooking, but most of the others were already gone. Anyone who lived on the East Coast and could afford it was off for the weekend to visit family. C had left with Caitlin. Only the stragglers were still here. 

Derek would go in the morning. He could have bought a train ticket for tonight but somehow it had never happened. 

He glanced over to the sink, noticing that the steam and hot water were turning Dex even more pink than usual. It might have been the wine, too. Derek had felt like contributing enough to use his ID to get them all something suitable for the occasion—or the finest wine the Stop & Shop had to offer, anyway. They were currently finishing off a rosé that was about as pink as wine should ever be. 

Derek paused to take a sip from his mug. Dex must have finished his since his cup was on the towel Dex set up for the extra dishes to dry. He had another towel slung over his shoulder and an apron over his sweater. A sweater and a collared buttoned down underneath that, because Hausgiving was something Dex felt he should dress up for. Derek missed him in a tie, but this was a good look too. 

The sweater was tight, literally tight. Dex had come back from summer break after apparently another growth spurt, freckles practically melted together on his now-even-broader shoulders. In contrast, the freckles on his lower arms, on the inside, by his elbows, were numerous but still distinct. 

Bitty asked him something without raising his head from his phone and Derek remembered, again, that he was supposed to be sweeping. Dex said something about his ‘Ma’ and Bitty just nodded, muttering about traffic. Then Bitty abruptly looked up with frown. “You two aren’t going to have problems, will you?”

“We’ll leave early,” Derek assured him, only to noisily hiccup. He blamed the wine. “Not that we are leaving together. We’re not together. Obv.” 

Bitty nodded again, already soothed, although they would both probably get a texted invite to Providence tomorrow morning, just in case they needed a place to go. 

Dex’s shoulders, though, eased down as if they’d been tensed for a moment. 

The first thing Derek had ever had in common with that boy—aside from hockey and Chowder—was those moments of internal panic. He couldn’t even describe how it felt to realize what he was looking at, but he’d recognized it. With Will though, the panic was never as fully buried as it should have been. It flipped into anger too quickly, usually when someone tripped one of Dex’s wires.

That someone generally being Derek. It had only been half on purpose then. Maybe sixty percent. Less so now. He had it down to a normal, healthy twenty percent of pushing Dex’s buttons on purpose. But it was different because Derek would never, ever poke at Dex for anything like this. Not anymore. Not since the ‘One in Four’ moment their freshman year. 

And as if he’d noticed, none of Dex’s responses had ever crossed that line either. His replies, too weak now to be anything but chirps, were never about anything except Derek’s klutziness and his picture in the Swallow and the… well, Dex called them his groupies. But that was it. No explosions in a long time, not counting the Dib Flip. 

A moment that had gone right into the Not Talking About It compartment of their friendship, right alongside whatever caused that level of Dex panic.

But sometimes, even off the ice, Will would glance over and happen to meet his eyes, and Derek thought no words were necessary. 

A warm feeling unfurled in his chest, which would have been alarming if Derek hadn’t experienced it before. Still, he sighed, and this time it was enough to get Bitty’s attention for a second. 

Then Bitty looked at his phone, gasped, and took off to grab his bag and run outside. “Have a good holiday!” he shouted, and cut himself off by closing the door. 

Derek was free to watch Dex’s back without an audience. Possibly the pink wine was making him self-indulgent. Will was actually scrubbing funk off a slotted spoon. 

“Gonna make somebody a sweet househusband someday, William.” 

Derek immediately wanted to brain himself on a cabinet but widened his eyes innocently when Dex twisted around to squint at him. 

“I can’t tell if you’re being sexist or not,” Dex remarked, giving Derek another suspicious look for good measure before turning back to his dishes. He didn’t comment on the rest of Derek’s obvious—obvious to Derek, anyway—angling for info on his love life. He didn’t comment on his love life, one way or the other. He never did, even in his freshman year. That meant something to certain people. 

People like Derek. And Bitty and Lardo and maybe Shitty with his intense love of Zimmermann, and possibly also Tango with his wide eyes and thousand questions. Even C or Ransom, because no one should ever assume. But _especially_ people like Derek, who were outside the lines and also somewhere between them. Not-straight was a negative, which Derek personally didn’t like but which worked for some people. He said queer when he was feeling angry and defiant or just not like explaining himself. Bi when he was talking to his parents. Pan when he was with classmates he liked and trusted. People like Derek, who weren’t sure about stuff yet, or who were but didn’t know the right label, or who didn’t want one. Those kinds of people noticed when other people were uncomfortable with lines too. 

He’d given up poking at Dex about his love/sex life during their sophomore year when it occurred to him that Will was private for a reason, and as much fun as the blushes were, Derek should stop being an ass about it. Anyway… anyway, sometimes he thought he didn’t want to hear the answer. And it wasn’t as if, until fairly recently, that he had said anything about himself to Will in return. Probably because when he’d met Will, Will had been the sort of repressed straight boy that Derek might have gone to his queer friends to mock and then cry over. Except not. Because of those moments when Will’s eyes would meet his. Accidentally, at least half the time, but they still meant something. 

That thing was that _not_ gaydar—that finely honed—even before Derek had admitted to any queer af thoughts—ability to listen and look for signs of anyone else as confused and hungry as him that made him stan the outsider in every bit of media—that—had told him from the start to keep an eye on this particular straight boy. 

He could be wrong. He certainly knew better. But he’d done it anyway, like, helplessly compelled to try to set up Will with artsy girls, and prod him about sex and dating. And fight. He’d fought with him _so much_. He still did but at least it was different now. They’d stumbled toward sharing words that finally meant the same thing when Derek said them as when Will said them. And the whole time, Derek had been keeping that eye out for clues and hints until it was a little too late and he was too invested and now they spoke the same language. 

Whatever. It wasn’t a big deal. 

Well, it was. But he couldn’t do anything about it, so he mostly let it be and thought about other stuff. He had a million things to read and write, classes to take, practice, gym time, games, finals, family visits. He had enough on his mind to leave Will for the moments before bed and upon waking and sometimes when they walked shoulder to shoulder. 

But whatever. He had it handled. 

He finally ran out of dust and crumbs to push around and got out the dustpan. His plate of pie was at the end of the counter, as yet untouched by Dex’s efficiency. Derek put everything away then returned to the counter to pick at some truly amazing sweet potato pie. 

He was full but he kept eating. “Ugh, it hurts but it hurts so good.”

Dex gave him an amused look. But all he said was, “Finish it so I can wash the plate.” 

“But I don’t want this moment to end,” Derek told him through a mouthful of pie. Which was certainly a thing to say. Totally normal. Not at all longing. He had to hurry past it. “Your pie was the prettiest.” 

Yeah that… did not make that better. 

“It wasn’t ‘my pie.’ I just helped.” Dex’s ears and the back of his neck were the color of a fine six dollar rosé. 

Derek grinned and held out the plate. “Have another bite before I explode.” He pushed his mug forward when Dex rolled his eyes but obediently ate the last of the pie. “Finish this wine for me. I’m too full.” 

He thought his whining was charming. Dex just gave him a side eye before he drank the wine, then plopped the mug in the dishwater. 

“I think even Whiskey had fun,” Dex said, out of nowhere. Several minutes might have passed since either of them had spoken. 

Derek straightened up. “Yeah, for a hot second.” Whiskey had left for home before dinner, but had hung out in the kitchen in the morning anyway, chopping onions with skill. “I think getting boys to relax in this kitchen is Bitty’s superpower. Besides how fast he bakes, I guess. He made a lot today.” Derek watched Will pull the stopper in the sink and dry his hands. He honestly had no idea what he was saying. “Did you know there’s still a whole pie? Right? I’m shocked too. I think someone hid it in the back of the fridge on purpose.” 

“Oh. I think it’s cherry,” Dex said casually. As though he was ever casual. “You could take it home with you, if you wanted. It’ll sit here all weekend otherwise. Taste like the refrigerator on Monday.” 

Derek had so much warmth blooming under his skin that it took him a while to speak, because that sounded like Will had made him a pie. But if he wasn’t going to say so, then Derek wasn’t going to risk tripping one of those wires. “Hell yeah, man. Thanks,” he murmured at last. 

Will was dangerous in times like these. He brought the morning and evening thoughts into the all day every day. But Derek was too tired and wine-happy to fight it, and no one was around to notice. “You should stop. Leave the rest for later.” 

“There is no later,” Dex pointed out with extreme responsibility. “Everyone is leaving tonight or early tomorrow and coming back to finals and games. You could go do something else with the others if you’re bored.”

Derek took a few steps to look out into the living room, where Ollie and Tango were passed out on the green couch, the news or something on TV in front of them. He shook his head and came back. He was fine where he was.

“You should have gone back tonight, even with the bad traffic.” Dex’s practicality when he was drinking was sort of hilarious. Or adorable. One of those. Derek privately thought that it was when Dex allowed himself to worry and fuss out loud instead of just in his head or in bursts of anxious temper. It would start out with advice and, if left unchecked, culminate in Will trying to solve everyone’s problems right then and there. “Tomorrow might be worse,” Will continued, oblivious to Derek’s fond thoughts. “And you’d get more time with your family.” 

“You’re one to talk.” Derek could be reasonable too. “It’s a longer drive for you. You could have left tonight.”

Dex shrugged without looking up from unnecessarily wiping down the counter. “I’ll be staying home ‘til Monday evening. And my family eats late anyway.” 

He slung the towel back over his shoulder, making him look like a hot, unavailable bartender, and Derek’s brain glitched. “Want a beer?” He did not want a beer but maybe Dex did. Maybe drunken Dex wouldn’t notice Derek offering him a beer like this was a kegster and Derek was hitting on him and he didn’t live here. _With Derek_. 

“No. I’m tired, but I’m too wired to sleep yet.” Dex stopped, seemed to realize he was wearing the towel, and slapped it on the counter. He took off the apron too. 

“My man working all day in a hot kitchen.” Derek sighed regretfully, just to make sure Dex knew he was teasing. 

Dex snorted. “This is nothing.”

“I know.” Derek had the chirp ready. “You walk to lobster fishing school every day five miles up hill in the snow.” 

He got a look of disbelief and then a hipcheck into the counter. “Dumbass. Come on,” Dex went on not even three seconds after calling Derek a dumbass, and flicked off the lights. Derek pulled back to grab some bottles of water from the fridge, then followed him out. 

Dex didn’t stop in the living room, so neither did Derek, except to put one of the water bottles next to Tango. Dex turned off those lights too, leaving the TV on, and headed up the stairs. 

Derek was lightly buzzed but mostly sleepy. It was easy to stay a step behind Dex and wonder if Dex had expected him to stay downstairs for a while. But Dex didn’t say anything, so neither did Derek as they headed up to their room. 

Dex shoved Derek toward the bathroom once they were up there. He joined him a few minutes later brushing his teeth while Derek put on moisturizer. He had interest in his gaze, but he never asked to use it, or if he should get some too. He splashed his face with water—a disgrace, but better than the regular hand soap he had been using before Derek had put a stop to that. Derek handed him a towel. Dex reached for the mouthwash and gave it to Derek before he could ask. 

Derek waited until Dex had shuffled back into the bedroom to let his smile out. 

Dex moved around, stripping off his dinner clothes. He had already packed, they both had, so he was just fussing now, restless and still in work-mode. 

Derek wondered if this was what had worried him at the start of all this, that Derek would see this much of him. Derek was slow about some things but not this. His friend of two years wasn’t going to have a panic attack like he had at the Dib Flip out of nowhere. There was a reason, and Derek had obsessively thought about it all through the summer break, with only a brief pause to celebrate the Cup with Jack and Bitty and everyone. He had made it through pre-season training, Dex sunburnt and bigger, sleeping a few feet from him, the sound of his breathing, but he still hadn’t found a satisfactory answer. 

He could guess. But that got him nowhere. 

“I gotta piss,” he announced, and didn’t bother to close the door. They were the same but now he knew things. Like that Dex was putting on sweats and a T-shirt on the other side of this wall, and that was only because he’d grown up with people around all the time and so always slept with enough clothes to keep his relatives from teasing him.

Dex probably knew a million similar facts about him, even if Derek had never meant for him to learn them. 

“Will,” Derek began after he’d finished and come back out. “Did tonight feel different to you? I feel… sort of adult.” 

Dex turned around, his face a question mark. 

Derek had a lot of feelings about the punctuation of Dex’s expressions. 

He pulled his shirt off while he reasoned out his answer. “Like, when you’re a kid, holidays are just… you just enjoy them. But now we cook—okay, you cooked. Shut up. My point stands. We shop,” he corrected, because he _had_ done that. “We clean up. We turn off the lights and watch our family leave and—” He had just described C and Bitty as family. _Whiskey_ as family. He took a deep breath. The pink wine had turned him into a suburban mom. 

“Aw. Feeling maudlin, Derek?” Dex chirped, although his tone wasn’t as sharp as it could have been. 

Derek sputtered for a moment. “Ooh, maudlin,” he said finally. “A fancy word for a CS major. And… nah. Like. I’m just noticing a change in the world.” 

“So dramatic,” Dex commented. But he’d lowered his voice. “You know what my ma does on holidays after everyone has gone home or to bed? Puts her feet up and watches TV in the dark. I think I get why now.” 

“Fuck yes.” Derek didn’t even have to think about that quiet invitation. He hurried out of his pants then shivered at the cold of the Haus even with the heat working and grabbed the nearest pair of sweats. Then he plopped onto his bunk with his laptop and put his back to the wall. 

A moment of hesitation from Dex before he switched off the lights made him abruptly realize that they would be watching together in the dark. But whatever. Derek had a handle on this. It could haunt him later, like a date that almost was. 

Dex somehow found the bed without stumbling in the dark, and stretched out next to him, grabbing a pillow before he put his back to the wall. Derek suppressed a soft whining noise in his throat and opened the laptop, and Netflix. “Stephen King?” he suggested. “Make you long for creepy-ass Maine?”

“Fuck off,” Dex responded lazily, not really mad. “You’re the one too scared to watch _IT_.”

Derek had no response to that that kept his dignity. But clowns were nightmares in greasepaint.

He chose the opposite of that, _Kubo and the Two Strings_ , and Will made a small grunt of approval before settling down. Derek arranged the laptop to distribute the weight between both of their legs, and pretended not to notice their legs were touching the way he pretended this wasn’t the most content he had felt in a long time. Maybe ever. Sitting in the dark watching a movie with Will after a long day. 

He couldn’t even make a Netflix and chill joke. This was good. This was so good he might fall asleep right here—no offense to the movie they had watched before. 

He smiled a little since Dex’s attention was on the screen, and exhaled, the kind of long, dragging breath that took the day’s tension with it. His eyelids immediately got heavy, so he closed them. 

Derek didn’t care about turkey, or pilgrims, but he had spent a few day-before-Thanksgivings in the Haus and this might have been the best one. Next year, if they did this, Dex would probably have to cook alone. He was going to freak out. Derek would have to talk to Chris and Farms and the others about it. 

There it was again. The adult feeling, right there beside the warm curl of affection that never went away anymore. It just got bigger or smaller depending on the day, and his mood, and the ginger fool next to him. 

Derek opened his eyes and glanced at the movie to see how long he’d been lost in his thoughts. Only about twenty minutes or so, he estimated, slightly surprised he hadn’t fallen asleep. 

He was warm without being hot. The room was too cold for that, but he glanced over to Dex instead of tugging on the blanket, fully expecting Dex to either have passed out or be glaring at the screen in concentration. 

Dex was looking at him. Frowning, yeah, but softly, or maybe that was the colors of the movie flickering across his face. He tensed when Derek turned—Derek could feel it along his arm and where their thighs were pressed together—then firmly directed his eyes toward the laptop. After a second, though, he looked back at Derek, who couldn’t stop staring at him. 

Or touching. That was Derek’s hand between them, the awkward angle apparently not stopping him from tracking the shifting colors across Dex’s cheek with his fingertips. He found Dex’s lips, the faint moisture from his breath and wanted, just wanted, Dex to think his breath was the same miracle. 

The room was dark and there was nothing else to keep him from destroying everything and asking, “Can I kiss you?” 

Reckless. Careless. He was going to cry over Dex after all. 

Dex leaned in to press their mouths together. 

He put one hand to Derek’s chest, directly over his thundering heart. His kiss was hesitant, barely there, scared and sweet. They shared a breath. Their lips brushed once, then again. Derek felt it in every nerve, the secret, special thrill of Will kissing him, tentative and cautious. He slid his fingers to Dex’s short hair, nails soft on his scalp, and the hand on his chest curled into a fist, pulling him closer. 

Derek kissed him back, face burning at the shuddery, shocked sound Dex made, the moan a few moments later that seemed to startle him. Dex inched back, breathing hard, eyes flying open to meet Derek’s. 

It was necessary to keep his hand at the nape of Will’s neck, absolutely mandatory to take his time leaning back in to take another kiss from his mouth. Will made a tiny, breathless sound, like a whine. Derek shifted onto his side, hardly remembering to maneuver the laptop behind him. He curved a hand over Will’s ribs, kissed him again, hot and aching when Will responded with his name. 

“You want this?” Derek whispered. No one was there to hear them but he couldn’t raise his voice or stray far from Dex’s mouth. He settled over Dex like it was the easiest thing and Dex made another shocked, aroused sound that went straight down his spine. 

“Yeah,” Will ground out like it was obvious, and kept Derek’s shirt in his fist. Derek couldn’t see his blushes, but he could hear him wet his lips, hear him swallow. He kissed him again, as slowly and sweetly as he knew how, over and over, until Dex’s hand relaxed, left his chest to slide up Derek’s back. 

His other hand slipped beneath Derek’s shirt. Derek groaned, embarrassingly into something that simple. Will panted against his jaw, at his lips after a brief kiss. He was so wound up. Of course he was. Derek petted his hair with hands that might have been shaking but Dex wouldn’t be able to tell, so it didn’t matter. He was between Will’s hockey-thick thighs and kissing him. _Nothing_ else mattered. 

Will hands were restless on his skin, demanding in a way that Will himself surprisingly wasn’t. He was quiet until Derek started to move, grinding down to feel his hard cock through his sweats. Then he whined again, high and frustrated, and Derek wished passionately that he was better at this, more experienced than some hook-ups, so he could make this so good. 

He shushed Will, smiling, smiling like a dumbass, and kissed his way Will’s neck to his shoulder while he shoved their sweats down. 

The first shock of contact made them both groan. Derek held himself still anyway, vibrating at the memory of that incredible slide of skin, the drag of their cocks together. 

Will’s curled a hand under Derek’s arm, over his shoulder. “It’s okay. I like it. Keep going.” 

It was nowhere near the levels of bossy Derek had let himself think about sometimes, on nights darker than this one. Will put his other hand to Derek’s side and moved, hitching up to meet the first roll of Derek’s hips, and then they were kissing again. 

Whole Haus practically to themselves, but everything after that was hushed. Slack-mouthed kisses and his name falling from Will’s lips again, the movie playing somewhere far away, Derek groaning. 

“Move a little?” he said once, almost shy, and softened it with nips along Will’s neck. 

“I thought you’d want….” Will started to say but never finished. He held Derek tight, tighter when Derek shook his head to try to tell him that he hadn’t wanted anything specific. Just Will. His chest, his entire body, was bursting with warmth, so much he couldn’t spend it all on kisses or words and finally gave up, holding Will just as tightly when Will came.

He didn’t know if Will had been with a man before. Will arched from the bed to come all over Derek’s chest, and then looked up, eyes wide. He reached for Derek’s cock like he knew what he was doing, but hesitated. 

Derek placed kisses along his throat while wrapping his hand around Will’s, making his grip firm. Will nodded instead of grumbling and stroked him using all the strength in those forearms, and made a gutted, hungry sound when Derek came on his stomach. 

Derek needed to stop kissing Will before Will said something, should definitely stop smiling before Will saw everything in the shifting movie colors flashing across his face. He—eventually—did, his earlier exhaustion finally catching up to him. He slipped down onto Will, letting Will take his weight until their breathing evened out. Then he flopped over, banging his elbow into the laptop. 

“You still got those tissues under the bed for when you jack off in here?” Will asked, husky-voiced and shivering. 

Derek laughed. He didn’t mean to, but his chest was still so full. When he could, he sat up and dug around until he found the box of tissues. 

Cleaning Will sobered him right up, touching his cock without sex clouding his mind, with Will silent and watchful. Derek wiped himself up with less attention to detail, then tossed the tissue to the floor, although Will was going to say something about that later when it stuck to the wood. 

“We missed like half the movie,” he complained as though they hadn’t seen it before. Maybe someone had to break the quiet. 

“You can watch it again if you want,” Will answered. They were both still whispering. “I think I’ll fall asleep. Should sleep anyway. Early morning,” he added, which Derek knew. 

He’d have to leave to get up to his bunk, and Derek thought again that he wasn’t ready for this to be over. 

“Stay,” he said, not really asking. “You’re here anyway,” he continued, making it weird, maybe. Or making it more. It didn’t feel like more, though, was the thing. It felt right to end this sleeping next to Will in his bed. 

Will didn’t move for another second. Then he sat up, tugging on his sweats as he did so he was covered again before he carefully lied back down, arranging his body around the laptop. He forgot a pillow. Derek handed him one in disbelief that he was really staying, then let himself smile as he closed the laptop, shutting off the movie for good and leaving them in a much darker room. 

He shoved the laptop to the side, then slid down to lie close behind Will. He had to, for space, and in the dark it was fine. It was so good. 

He buried his face against that undoubtedly pink, flushed nape and then put his arm around Will as if they did this all the time. He thought he’d stay awake after that, his mind racing—screaming—over this, but he was full and sleepy and had just had an orgasm. His eyes closed almost immediately. 

“Night, Nursey,” Dex told him softly, in a late night dream of a voice. 

“Night, Dex,” Derek whispered, deciding they could talk in the morning. Say something in the moments of coffee brewing downstairs and his cab arriving. 

He let out a long, happy sigh and felt his mind start to drift into contented sleep. 

He woke up alone.


	3. Act Three (Act Three)

Act Three

(Act Three)

Derek had thought about nothing else. Dreams floated through his head, answers Will hadn’t given yet and might not ever give. All those clues about Will Derek had collected over the years. All the signs leading to a big purple circle in a Venn diagram of overlapping queerness and constant worry. 

Will was made of stone across the table. That was telling enough. That was the Dib Flip. That was him on Lardo’s floor for hours, stuck in his own head. 

“Chill,” Derek told him firmly, and then said it again to make sure Will knew he meant it. Will wasn’t forgiven for ditching him, but Will should know that it was okay, that it was more than okay if he was demi. He shouldn’t have had to worry. “Chill.” 

Derek was about to smile when it occurred to him that Dex might be scared of more than that. His mouth went dry. 

He would have given almost anything to be a little wine-mom drunk right now. 

“I, um, was going to tell everyone. Eventually.” Dex stared at Derek for another moment before rubbing his neck and looking at Bitty. “I didn’t say anything because I already get so much shit from my family for not dating, and my brother says—well, you know what they say about guys who don’t bring anyone home. And I was trying to figure it all out.”

“You don’t have to say why you didn’t tell us,” Chowder broke in. 

Will nodded fiercely. He was always so fierce. “I know. But—sometimes you have to say shit out loud. Or write it down. I don’t know. Doing things doesn’t always make it clear. It’s just….” he briefly floundered for words. “I’m already angry and pale and, you know—”

“Weird?” Derek finished for him, but gently because he got this part. “This felt like something else to make you even weirder compared to everybody else?” 

The things he had in common with this boy. 

“Fuck off,” Will told him, but quietly, with his mouth soft and his gaze serious. “Anyway. You guys go back to your Screw talk. I meant it. You should go and have fun.” 

_With someone who wasn’t weird_ , Derek completed that thought. That was what Will meant. That somehow he was not what Derek wanted. That made sense and was bullshit at the same time. Derek had been _very_ obvious in the dark with him. As far as Dex was concerned, if he wanted, Derek was the right man for the right job. Whatever shade of ace Will was, or was working on discovering, Derek was down. 

“Yo, Wicksy,” Derek drawled to Wicks without taking his eyes off Will. It was tantalizingly possible that Will had been on exactly the same page as Derek the night of Hausgiving. It was suddenly very real that they should have talked then, like the grownups they almost were. “Don’t set me up. I have someone in mind already.”

Dex tightened his mouth. 

“Huh,” Whiskey said, as though he had just figured something out. 

“Hush,” Bitty told him, excited like he already knew. Which basically told Derek he wasn’t hiding anything well at the moment. He was breathing fast. That could have been why. 

He sat back anyway, as focused on Will as he usually only allowed himself to be when he thought no one else would notice. “Go to Screw with me, Poindexter?”

Will stiffened. His eyes were round. He didn’t blink until Bitty made a noise, and then he darted a worried look around the table. 

Which was when Derek remembered that Will hadn’t actually come out as anything other than demisexual. “As friends, if you want,” Derek added. “I mean it. You should have fun, and I’d rather go with you.”

“I thought you were pissed at me.” Recently outed or not, there was a stubborn edge to Will’s voice. 

“Say yes, and I’ll forgive you,” Derek negotiated, but his tone was weak. 

“Foine!” Chowder hollered, in a decent impression of Holster’s regular speaking voice. “Also, as a sidenote, guys—swawesome!”

Will was a nicely flustered strawberry. “Nurse, you—you don't need to ruin your dance time by hanging out with me. We can hang out whenever.”

“Fuck you. I want to spend time with you, asshole.” Derek’s entire face was burning up too. He dropped his voice to something secretive, although of course everyone was listening and watching. “You kind of know that already.” 

Bitty was furiously texting. Shit. Lardo was going to quirk an eyebrow at Derek to utterly devastate him by letting him know she’d always known, even if she hadn’t. But Will couldn’t look away from him, so, probably worth it. 

“Well, this is happening now, I guess.” Wicks sighed. 

“Maybe you guys should take this up to your room,” Chris cut in. “I mean, I love you guys, but you might not want this to be right here. Congratulations, I think? Did you asking that mean what I think it did? I hope so, since either way it’s still a fine.”

Will pushed back his chair and stood up, spine ramrod straight, his ears probably sizzling. Derek left his book there and followed him out of the kitchen, away from the burst of not-whispered conversation, up the stairs to their room. 

Derek closed the door and considered Will in the light of day, in his SMH sweatshirt and jeans. The room was chilly but not cold. Will had his arms crossed and was tense, which was not a surprise. 

“This is why I left,” he began abruptly. “I know you—we’re good. You didn’t have to ask me out in front of everyone. Jesus. Thanks, I guess, for trying to help me out there. I know you have my back, even when you’re pissed at me. You didn’t need to sacrifice a night out to prove it.”

“Wow.” Derek crossed his arms too. It was defensive but that didn’t matter. Will apparently wasn’t as good at reading him as he’d thought. “So. You think I really am that shallow?”

“What?” Will was motionless. “No, I—”

“Yeah, you do.” Derek uncrossed his arms to make finger quotes in the most obnoxious way possible. “ _Sacrifice_ ,” he echoed. “You think I prefer the groupies. To _you_.” He gestured to Will a little wildly. That night, he’d thought Will felt the same comfort in the idea of their room. That Will had been aching to get closer too. If Derek hadn’t thought that, he would never have asked to kiss him. 

He had been in love with Dex for years, maybe. Disliked him and been fascinated by him and attracted to him and liked him and then loved him and finally been in love with him too. He would have stayed the way they were for even longer, with only the occasional overwhelming fit of longing to know Will had this same depth of feeling for him. Sitting with Will in his tiny bed with full stomachs and a slight buzz, Will smiling at him in the dark—that was _family_. 

“What,” Derek said flatly to stress the point. “Do you, Poindexter, truly believe I would prefer those groupies or anyone—except possibly Christopher Chow—to you? Do you, after knowing me two years and sleeping in my bed, really think that? _How_? That’s not even possible.”

That was a thing he said. Out loud. To Will. He might as well just spill his blood for him too. Derek crossed his arms again, made himself look into Will’s amazed eyes for as long as he could stand the fire in them. “So.” 

Will blinked several times. He crossed his arms too. “They’re probably better at fucking than I am.” He shot the words like nails but they weren’t aimed at Derek. Will looked at his feet, then the closed door at Derek’s back. “They know how to do stuff to get your attention. I know you don’t really get why they do that—you say you do, but you don’t. You get charming with them and you’ve never bothered to be charming with me. It’s irked me for two years.”

“Irked.” A nerdy part of Derek was delighted at that word choice and not bemused and trying to follow what Will was saying.

“People tell me all the time that you’re beautiful, you know. All the time.” Will twisted his lips. “Which I know. Even when I barely knew you, I could see that. But they tell me. They tell me you’re smart too. And sexy.” He stopped to sigh and scrape his hands through his hair, knocking his hat to the floor. “Beautiful and smart and good at hockey. You talk funny and you dress nice and you irked me so goddamn much. You kept asking me weird shit. What I’m doing for Valentine’s Day. If I’ll Skype you. If I’m Irish. If I’ll sing to you.”

“That was—” Derek’s voice was a little strangled. “I was flirting with you. Badly, apparently.”

“Oh,” Dex said, in exactly the same voice that Chowder had used earlier, as if that wasn’t earth-shattering news to him, only mildly interesting. “That’s what Bitty kept hinting at when I asked once.”

Eric Bittle, chaotic neutral. 

“You really didn’t notice?” Derek could never tell anyone of this. Especially not Chowder. 

Dex gave a shrug of confusion. “I thought you were picking on me for not being more _social_. That’s why it took me so long to realize we were friends.”

Derek wanted to hide under the bed and never come out. “Well,” he cobbled together some dignity, “we _are_ friends.” 

“And you were flirting with me.” _Now_ the paradigm shift was evident in Will’s expression. “You were _flirting_ with me! I thought—until the other night I thought the way we are together is just my feelings and what it’s like being around someone like you. But you—then why didn’t it bother you afterward? You didn’t seem affected.” He scowled. “Except for how you’ve been a dick all week—more than your usual ten-to-fifteen percent dick.”

“It’s closer to twenty.” Derek closed his mouth. Then he made finger quotes again. “ _Having a nice weekend?_ After having sex with one of your best friends? I get that you might not have a lot of experience with morning-afters but that doesn’t exactly cut it. I was—” It occurred to him that what would have been a chirp about Dex striking out couldn’t work now, because Dex hadn’t been trying to wheel anyone. So what Derek had just said was literally true. He dropped his hands and started over. “Why me?” He was too quiet. Too hurt. “Were you curious? Because I asked and you know me, so it was okay for you?”

“What?” Will reared back. “It’s not like I’m panting after C.”

“Hey, C is hot.” 

“Almost nobody is hot to me,” Will shot back, then sighed noisily. “Chris is objectively hot though.”

Derek let that sink in. He made himself take a moment to process. “So it wasn’t just because I’m your friend and I was there? Because people told you I was beautiful and sexy or whatever?”

Will looked like he would have squirmed if he knew how. “Would’ve done it sooner then. If that was true, I would have done something before,” he muttered, then raised his voice to continue speaking to the door. “Sometimes you make it difficult to remember that we aren’t—ugh—you make things easy. Not really. Not actually easy. I mean, goddamn it, Nursey, it took a year for me to understand the, like, six different ways you use chill.” 

“Chill,” Derek suggested. Dex’s voice was getting high. 

“I will not.” Will raised his chin. “You were going on about how ‘adult’ we were and how things had changed, like you were happy they were changing and you wanted more, and I got careless.”

“Because you were on guard before?” Every single one of their fights ran through Derek’s head in crystal clarity. Soulmates weren’t real, but if someone told him they’d put part of him in this prickly ginger, he’d believe them. Derek was also on guard all the time. “I forget too,” he admitted, “with you. Is this why you panicked so hard at the idea of moving in with me?”

_Moving in with me._ Way to make it even more intimate, Derek. 

He couldn’t give Will a chance to answer, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. 

“I thought you didn’t want me.” His voice cracked. His heart possibly stopped beating. He closed his eyes like a mature, responsible adult pretending that if he couldn’t see the monsters in the closet, they weren’t there. He left his arms uncrossed since he’d already bared his soft underbelly. “Go ahead. Destroy me some more.”

“So dramatic.” Dex huffed. “I made your family a pie. I asked Bitty how to put leaves in the crust. Do know the shit my brother would give me for that alone? I did that before we ever—when I just wanted to. Not that I ever just _wanted_ you. I mean, I do. It’s distracting how much I do. But also I—I don’t know. Pie worked for Bitty!”

The pie was for Derek. To impress his family. Even though Dex had not been going to ask Derek out. 

Derek opened his eyes as his heart pulsed Will-infused warmth through his entire body. “You have feelings for me.”

Will was a stubborn jaw and straight shoulders. “You kind of know that already,” he said smartly, if angrily. “It’s kind of part of what Tony said downstairs in front of everyone.”

“Which he shouldn’t have done, but pity him, he’s in Chowder’s hands now.” Derek took a breath. He wasn’t alone in that kitchen when everyone else had chosen to leave early but the two of them, or on the walk up the stairs to their room, or sitting on the bed not five feet from them and wanting to kiss the boy next to him. “I have feelings for you too.” 

He couldn’t stand that disbelieving look from Will. “Even though….” Will briefly fell silent. “Don’t lecture me about what I should demand from partners. Shitty already did. Just. Just let me process.” He waited until Derek nodded to encourage him to go on. “I’ve had people describe to me, in detail, for years, what sexy means and that you are it. And as much as I know you’re more than that—Because you are. You really are—it also makes me feel—I mean, what the fuck would you even want with me? So you were there, snoring through my alarm, and I know how you were when we were together, how it felt, but I kept thinking you were going to wake up and be _nice_ about it. Chill. When it was a lot for me. It was so much,” he added, in a very un-Dex-like voice. “It wasn’t bad?”

“No.” Derek frowned. “Hell no. It’s never been like that. Ever. Not that I’m this Lothario or player or whatever you imagine.”

“Lothario,” Will repeated with a snort. Then he shook his head. “I’ve had sex before. It wasn’t like that for me either, but I’m hardly the standard judge, so—yeah, I know, there’s no standard. Don’t interrupt.”

“Rude,” said Derek, who had been about to interrupt. 

Dex exhaled noisily through his nose, embarrassed. “I came and everything, those other times, but I didn’t want it like I do—” he rolled his wrist at Derek as if to say _with you_ , as if that was good enough for Nursey’s greedy heart. “And I wasn’t sure if this was special or if I wanted it to be because you’re you and I— _you know_ —you.” He rubbed his mouth. “But you said it was like that for you too so—do we have to keep talking about this?”

“Fuck no.” Derek’s legs were going to give out, he was shaking so hard. He reached out, snagged Dex’s sweatshirt pocket with his fingertips. Dex came closer. Derek wanted to kiss him in sheer relief. “Did you make those cookies for me too?” 

“Shut up,” Will told him, which was a yes. Will tipped his head up. Derek trailed a touch over his hood, moving it aside to look for faint traces of where his mouth had been. The stubble burn was long gone. The hints of a few heavy kisses were not. 

“Go to Screw with me?” Derek hid his face against thick cotton. Will smelled like cookies and jam. “For the sake of the Waffles? Or—fuck it—just for us?” 

“I’m working on public.” Will settled his hands carefully on Derek’s chest, near his shoulders. “My family…. I spent all weekend getting razzed about the girlfriend I don’t have and all the puck bunnies I must be fucking. You weren’t speaking to me but they were happy to see me checking my phone. Like it meant I was “normal.” They thought it was for a girl,” he added. Derek nodded and a bit more tension left Will’s back. “They might not like how very gay this is. But they will at least get that. You ever gonna kiss me again?”

Derek took another look at the marks he’d left. “You’re the one who didn’t even text me until the day after.”

“Yeah.” Dex worked his jaw. “I’m sorry.”

Derek gently kissed the side of his neck. Will made a curious, not unhappy sound. Derek leaned more of his weight onto Will, who grunted but took it. Derek bussed another soft kiss over Will’s skin. “Is this okay? This much kissing?”

Will nodded, very quickly. 

“So you’re super gay for me, huh?” Derek had a feeling he was beaming. 

“That should be a fine,” Will complained. 

“Nah,” Derek argued, sort of deliriously. “I get to say that. Check the by-laws. People under the queer umbrella are allowed to make jokes about it.”

“Then I get to make them too,” Will countered. “And yeah. In addition to all the other things I am for you, I’m also pretty gay for you.” 

“ _Chill!_ ” Derek said, but loud and excited. Louder than he’d said it when the coin landed and he realized Will would be his roommate. He dropped his voice when Will pulled back to stare at him in disbelief, possibly for saying that word in this moment. Derek had no way to take it back. So. “Me too.” Daytime or not, full sunlight shining on Dex’s face, it was easy to say. “For a while. For a long time.”

Will was a healthy, slightly emotional pink. He put his palm to Derek’s chin, swept his fingers along his cheekbone before he seemed to realize what he was doing and nervously took his hand away. Derek pulled it right back up until Will got the hint and went on touching him. Marveling, really. He was _sweet_ about it. Focused. Determined. The exact opposite of reckless and daring—to Derek, anyway. 

To Dex, this might be terrifying. Exhilarating. Bold. 

Fuck words. Derek loved them but he and Will had been using them wrong. _Again._

“Can I kiss you?” Will whispered, barely brushing his thumb across the bow in Derek’s upper lip. 

Never mind. Words were great. He and Will were learning. They could adapt. Change. _Grow._

Derek gazed at Will in wonder. “Do you ever have late night thoughts?” he asked softly, tracing the sunlight on Will’s face. “Good ones, I mean, not anxious ones. Like daydreams.”

Will squinted at him. “Is that a yes?” 

Right. Will didn’t dream. Will baked pies and stayed late to keep Derek company. He made coffee and left it for Derek to find in a travel mug. He carved leaves out of dough. 

Derek was light-headed, warm all through his body. He smiled until Dex’s blush spread down to his throat and possibly his chest. Then he leaned in very slowly to press their mouths together. 

The End

(The Beginning) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huckleberry: "A man; specif., the exact kind of man needed for a particular purpose. 1936: "Well, I'm your huckleberry, Mr. Haney." Tully, "Bruiser," 37. Since 1880, archaic.


End file.
